Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Why I dislike major public events.

1. The food. If you are going to organise catering in a tent, where you have to be able to serve, conservatively, 600 meals an hour (that is 10 plates of food every minute), the likelihood that the food you are serving is going to have been kept cold enough during transit and storage, and heated to a high enough temperature not to give you a roaring bottom is low. What is more, I do not want to queue for an hour to play gastro-roulette with something that is surprisingly expensive given the coating of cheese-like substance that bears a closer resemblance to erasers than a dairy product.

2. Surreal street theatre. Now personally, I like a gaggle of angels dancing around, riding tricycles, then getting all stressed out when one of them strips to an overly hairy body-stocking and runs away from attempts to re-dress him by his angel cohorts. Sadly the children find this confusing. It seems it is difficult for children to process that someone would pay a group of people to dress up and attempt silliness at a public event with no particular audience except whoever is around at the time.

I once went to an event where there were demonstrations of different types of dances. There was a group of Morris dancers who broke out into jingly, hanky floofing, knee wiggling splendor during a number of time in the afternoon but only if they could find a spot where there were very few possible watchers. Chronically shy Morris dancers seems odder to me than hirsute stripper angels.

3. Noise. Call me old and grumpy but I don't like sound systems that make your ears hurt. Just think how much grumpier I am going to get when I am actually old - bet you can't wait.

4. The toilets. Probably most of what I have to say on this topic is covered in Kenny, a film about corporate toilet rental. I prefer to put my 2-lumpy-pregnancy-addled pelvic floor to the test rather than chance fate in a high-usage rental convenience.*

I will leave you with a quote from that august piece of film-making:

"There's another classic example of someone having a two inch arsehole and us having installed
only one inch piping."

* Though I do remember having to make significant amendments to my "I am not going there" rule when I was pregnant. Put it this way, I am never intending to urinate in the toilet block behind the Geranium** hall again.

** "Geranium is a town with 60 residents, and has a hall, two churches, a
store, a garage, extensive sporting facilities*** and the only other
bowling green in the area make it an important local centre, and an
attractive township for farmers to retire to."

*** This may be an exaggeration. For those who understand the significance of this, Geranium is too small to have a football team in the local Mallee League.